Part of the problem with American way of birth is that women are not allowed to move as freely as they do almost everywhere else. It's a LOT harder to handle labor on your back, in a bed and if you add pitocin? That is NOT normal labor.
We make it so much harder on ourselves than need be.
For sure, I spent 3 days on a bed with straight pitocin and I actually spent 2 years mentally recovering from it, it was horrific.
I had back labor, and ended up getting an epidural because the pain in my back was so excrutiating, I literally couldn't move. And my contractions were coming in on top of each other, meaning I didn't get any relief from the pain, not even for a minute. I also got the epidural because I'd been up for over 24 hours and needed rest so I would have the energy to actually push the baby out. In an ideal world, I would have loved to have a drug free labor. But it didn't work out like that for me.
Everyone's labor is different, and different things work for different people. There are definitely risks involved in having an epidural - people just need to educate themselves beforehand, and then decide what's best for them.
If you (people in general) can do the drug free thing, that's awesome!! If you can't, that's awesome too.
Back to the original subject of the thread - I would (and will) happily go through it all over again to have another baby!
Part of the problem with American way of birth is that women are not allowed to move as freely as they do almost everywhere else. It's a LOT harder to handle labor on your back, in a bed and if you add pitocin? That is NOT normal labor.
We make it so much harder on ourselves than need be.
Very true....each time I got up to go to bathroom during my son's labor, I dilated. Looking back I wish I had just walked around my room. He was 10 pounds and gravity was doing its job
I had back labor, and ended up getting an epidural because the pain in my back was so excrutiating, I literally couldn't move. And my contractions were coming in on top of each other, meaning I didn't get any relief from the pain, not even for a minute. I also got the epidural because I'd been up for over 24 hours and needed rest so I would have the energy to actually push the baby out. In an ideal world, I would have loved to have a drug free labor. But it didn't work out like that for me.
Everyone's labor is different, and different things work for different people. There are definitely risks involved in having an epidural - people just need to educate themselves beforehand, and then decide what's best for them.
If you (people in general) can do the drug free thing, that's awesome!! If you can't, that's awesome too.
Back to the original subject of the thread - I would (and will) happily go through it all over again to have another baby!
Ugh... I had that with my second, and it was the worst thing I've ever felt. My first was an unmedicated 42-hour labor, and it was WAY easier than the 10 hours my second time around. I'm fairly anti-epidural (and knew after my first time that I could handle it), but I did get one with my back labor. I tried everything, and had been wanting a water birth (in the hospital), but even the water was doing nothing to ease the pain at all. Once I finally relaxed, I went straight to 10 cm... it was crazy! With my first, being in the tub took almost all the pain away. I recommend laboring in water to everyone! Even if your hospital won't let you birth in it (and some won't, mine's pretty progressive), at least labor in there. It's (usually) amazing!
